Tuesday, 2 March 2010

What Happens When Lawyers Wax Philosophical?

 
(Thanks New Yorker)

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Monday, 1 March 2010

Proceedings from the 43rd meeting (26 February 2010) of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance seminar

Dear all,

Follow the proceedings from the 43rd meeting of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance seminar:

1. For those who still fear and tremble before the factual uniqueness of death, and don't believe philosophy will offer them any consolation, then Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is for you.

2. Kierkegaard is the genuine heir not only of Socratic irony but also of Aristotelian rhetoric and metaphysic.

3. The premise to (attempting to) understanding Kierkegaard is understanding ‘irony’. K.’s irony is the most legitimate heir of Socrates’ irony. It is a pretension of ignorance which shows the interlocutor that she does not really know what she thought she knew. Thus, it reveals an openness, the imperfection of the received wisdom.

4. His contribution to philosophical theology like the fixed solitary interiority of Descartes is to protect (which of course, needs no protection at all!) a protonic core, called faith, which is completely uncoupled to any (rational) system of thought.

5. We started by reading the preface of ‘Fear and Tremble’. K. writes under pseudonyms and ironically criticises himself as a writer who has not understood the ‘System’, the convention…

6. We then approached the Prelude, where K. narrates the sacrifice of Isaac. From Fear and Tremble, Prelude, I: "And God tempted Abraham and said unto him, Take Isaac, Mine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountain which I will show thee."
It was early in the morning, Abraham arose betimes, he had the asses saddled, left his tent, and Isaac with him, but Sarah looked out of the window after them until they had passed down the valley and she could see them no more. They rode in silence for three days. On the morning of the fourth day Abraham said never a word, but he lifted up his eyes and saw Mount Moriah afar off. He left the young men behind and went on alone with Isaac beside him up to the mountain. But Abraham said to himself, "I will not conceal from Isaac whither this course leads him." He stood still, he laid his hand upon the head of Isaac in benediction, and Isaac bowed to receive the blessing. And Abraham’s face was fatherliness, his look was mild, his speech encouraging. But Isaac was unable to understand him, his soul could not be exalted; he embraced Abraham’s knees, he fell at his feet imploringly, he begged for his young life, for the fair hope of his future, he called to mind the joy in Abraham’s house, he called to mind the sorrow and loneliness. Then Abraham lifted up the boy, he walked with him by his side, and his talk was full of comfort and exhortation. But Isaac could not understand him. He climbed Mount Moriah, but Isaac understood him not. Then for an instant he turned away from him, and when Isaac again saw Abraham’s face it was changed, his glance was wild, his form was horror. He seized Isaac by the throat, threw him to the ground, and said, "Stupid boy, dost thou then suppose that I am thy father? I am an idolater. Dost thou suppose that this is God’s bidding? No, it is my desire." Then Isaac trembled and cried out in his terror, "O God in heaven, have compassion upon me. God of Abraham, have compassion upon me. If I have no father upon earth, be Thou my father!" But Abraham in a low voice said to himself, "O Lord in heaven, I thank Thee. After all it is better for him to believe that I am a monster, rather than that he should lose faith in Thee."

When the child must be weaned, the mother blackens her breast, it would indeed be a shame that the breast should look delicious when the child must not have it. So the child believes that the breast has changed, but the mother is the same, her glance is as loving and tender as ever. Happy the person who had no need of more dreadful expedients for weaning the child!

7. K. gives us a pathetic account of the story, whereby Isaac pleads for his life whereas Abraham, hardened, silences his child. The close reading leaves us puzzled. What is faith? Why obeying God is he orders to do the most horrible thing one can imagine? Indeed why would you be religious? Competing arguments were presented by the atheists/ agnostics amongst us. Namely, that the community, the church brainwash man to go against his humanity, imposing control and neuroses. Or, that one embraces religion out of implicit calculation giving some liberty but getting something in return. Would you embrace a manifestly contemptible religion? Death and killing are the most heinous deeds man can do. Why indeed do they continuously occur? Is that a betrayal of humanity? Passion or deliberation, can any motive explain death? Thought rapidly runs to war – and other types of terrorism.

8. But K. presents four different readings of the tale!

9. When Kierkegaard was a boy, his father would force him to walk round and round the frontroom of the house imagining what it would be like to be outside.

10. This is his essential technique.

11. K. de-couples you with acts of the imagination that put you in situations which carry no home-spun truth, no simple conclusions, bringing you back against whatever apriori you might have espoused but leading you to a state of aporia (wonderment). A million intepretations of what Abraham and Issac are about, but none of them satisfy any system. This is the irony of faith. There is no cogito, no ergo, and certainly, no sum.

12. K. is captivating, his contorted mind a blast of lucidity. We shall read more from ‘Fear and Tremble’ next Friday.

13. Of course… honour to our group of brave philosophers! The participation of Daniela, Fiona, Cameron, Chiara, Omar, Francisco, Giuseppe, Marco, Giordano and Laura was absolutely passionate.

See you next Friday!
Joe and Laura

Painting: 'The Binding Of Isaac (The Akedah)' 2002 by Alan Falk
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Friday, 26 February 2010

UKCLE's Ideas on the Future of Legal Education

My friend, Julian Webb, is who is director of UKCLE and professor of legal education, has put together an interesting short film about the influences on the future of legal education in the UK. I think it also informs discussion about legal education elsewhere.



I recommend reading his blog at hEaD space
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Thursday, 25 February 2010

Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance - 43rd Weekly Meeting

Dear all


At the 43rd gathering of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, on Friday 26 February 2010, from 6.00 to 8.00pm, in room 5.16, 309 Regent Street (University of Westminster), we begin to talk about the concept of God, faith, sacrifice, death – all in relation to finance and law.


1. The most significant popular philosopher post-Kant is Kierkegaard. He is the most approachable for his passion and examination of the subcutaneous doubt that nicks our daily stream of consciousness.


2. Kierkegaard also fits the Heideggerian programme of reaching into the originary meanings – and in Joe’s opinion, he is much better than Heidegger at achieving a synthesis of Greek meaning and method applied to the modern period where questions of faith are translated into the expected sameness and certainty of global financial transactions. He captures the ultimate unconscious fear that what we do every day is on the brink of fatal collapse.


3. We will begin reading Fear and Trembling, see: http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=2068


As usual at 8.00pm we will move to Vapiano (19-21 Great Portland Street, W1W 8QB) seeking relief from such mystifying meditations.


See you on Friday!


Best,

Joe and Laura



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Wednesday, 24 February 2010

The Legal Services Board Has Spoken


The Legal Services Board has announced that the first  Alternative Business Structures will be able to apply for licences in mid-October 2011. For English lawyers this will be the dawning of a new age. For the Master of the Rolls (the head of our civil appeals court) this is the slippery slope to the fusion of barristers and solicitors. Maybe, or maybe the differences will be less defined. Whichever way it goes specialization will take care of what skills are needed.

The LSB quotes some interesting statistics from the Office of National Statistics on the legal profession.
The legal profession currently consists of some 16,455 barristers, 112,246 solicitors and 12,200 individuals authorised to operate in other aspects of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The sector has been valued at £25.97 billion per annum. In total the legal sector employed 323,000 individuals in 2008. [ONS]
With this kind of money and the numbers of people involved in legal services, there is plenty of incentive for some creative thinking in this future market. Now, question: will it be a matter of who gets there first or will the fast second ultimately win?
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Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom...Already?

(Thanks to RalphMag)

It was only a few days ago that I was speculating how local governments and their legal departments would respond to the opportunities raised by the Legal Services Act 2007 and Alternative Business Structures (ABS).

We don't have to wait that long. In today's The Lawyer it was reported that Kent County Council's legal department (mentioned in the previous post) has formed a quasi-joint venture with a regional law firm, Geldards, to "create a single brand for public sector work capable of taking over local authority legal departments." The new "structure" will be called 'Law:Public'. It is clear that Law:Public aims to take over as much work as possible from the legal departments of local authorities. Local authorities could then close down or hive off their legal departments. To what extent the loss of local specialist knowledge will matter is an open question.

Since the new rules on ABS haven't been formulated yet, there are questions over this operation but they are unlikely to be challenged. To ensure a level of compliance with Law Society rules the two elements will offer different rates. KCC will charge at £90 an hour and Geldards will drop a £100 off its normal hourly rate to £150.

The success of ventures like these will depend on how local authorities begin to re-arrange their legal spend in the light of the financial crisis that is now hitting the public sector. Birmingham City Council has opened its own legal panel to other local authorities that want to access its law firms rather than recruit their own panels. For example, Hackney council in London only has barristers on its panel so the open Birmingham panel gives Hackney access to solicitors. The Lawyer also mentions that "dozens of authorities in the North West, North East and South of England are teaming up on a regional basis to access advice more cheaply through joint panels."

Coda: on the same front page of The Lawyer is an item describing how Outer Temple chambers (barristers) have set up a company to target international work. The OT barristers will be its shareholders. Once the new ABS rules are implemented then this company could start doing domestic work as well as international and generate work for non-OT barristers who could also become shareholders. So, we shall be seeing barristers listed on the Stock Exchange.

We've come a long way since a former Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham (bless him), enunciated, "A solicitor is a man of business; a barrister is an artist and a scholar."

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Sunday, 21 February 2010

19 February PFLF: Proceedings

Dear all,

Follow the proceedings from the 42nd meeting of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance seminar, on Being and Finance

1) Honour to our group of philosophers: Roman, Alexey, Galo, Fiona, Rezarte, Omar, Slim, Daniela, Zhu, Marco, Francisco, and Laura. Impressively proactive to the loaded philosophical agenda of this Friday.

2) Before introducing us to Heidegger, Joe presented the metrology of knowledge. Metrology identifies a scale of knowledge. Simplifying, at the ‘nominal scale’, knowing is naming; at the ‘interval scale’ knowing is distinguishing entities, incorporating the nominal with greater and less than relations; at the ‘ordinal scale’ knowing incorporating both the nominal and interval scale with the addition of ‘order’ or ‘sequence’; at the ‘ratio-nal’ or ‘ratio-scale’ knowing is based on a perfect description of a real fact, such as, absolute zero being the absolute fact that underpins all temperature. In typical Joe’s style, the theme of the prologue shall re-emerge in all its meaning later on…

3) We consequently turned to a close reading of Martin Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics”. Heidegger’s metaphysics centre a big haunting idea: “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”. Heidegger is philosophically sublime in posing his question: “What is put into question comes into relation with a ground. But because we are questioning, it remains an open question whether the ground is truly grounding, foundation-effecting, originary ground; whether the ground refuses to provide a foundation, and so is an abyss; or whether the ground is neither one nor the other, but merely offers the perhaps necessary illusion of a foundation and is thus an unground”.

4) But Heidegger’s affection for Being is not abstract. His yearning is – I’d say – moralist, aesthetic and political: “This Europe, in its unholy blindness always on the point of cutting its own throat This Europe, in its unholy blindness always on the point of cutting its own throat, lies today in the great pincers between Russia on the one side and America on the other. Russia and America, seen metaphysically, are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology and of the rootless organization of the average man. When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered technologically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, at any time you like, becomes as fast as you like; when you can simultaneously ‘experience’ an assassination attempt against a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo; when time is nothing but rapidity, instantaneity and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from all Dasein [Being] of all people; when a boxer counts as the great man of a people; when the tallies of millions at mass meetings are a triumph, yes then, there still looms like a spectre over all this uproar the question: what for – where to – and what then?''. Is the previous passage, ceteris paribus, not familiar to you perchance? Fiona and Daniela read in it the very contemporary critique from globalisation and media studies…

5) Thus Heidegger seems to oppose Nietzsche’s critique to the ‘decadent’ as too decadent itself. According to Nietzsche, the highest concepts such as Being are “the final wisp of evaporating reality”. Heidegger instead investigates whether “Is ‘Being’ a mere word and its meaning vapour, or is it the spiritual fate of the West”? Thence he wishes to “repeat and retrieve the inception of our historical-spiritual Dasein”… “Introduction to Metaphysics” is based on lectures delivered in Freiburg in 1935. We all know where the fetish for history and identity led Germany in the 1930s and 1940s…

6) What has it all to do with finance? Is finance Being? Moving from ontology to epistemology (and consequently back from epistemology to ontology…): What can you know about finance? Recalling the metrology scale of knowledge, can you name ‘finance’ (nominal scale)? Perhaps it depends on what do you mean with finance, which in fact has multiple manifestations. So is there such a thing as finance? Can you classify finance and its concepts (interval scale)? Can you quantify finance (ordinal scale)? This is the state in which most of the advanced financial models are today – it’s about the quants’ job namely… And finally, can you know with absolute precision about finance (rational scale)? There is no rational scale in finance – there are no apparent invariances – and the technical patches are very badly applied. For example, the use of copulas for asset backed securities pre-credit crisis contributed to their disastrous mis-valuation. If you knew finance at the rational scale, as Joe quipped, you would make a trillion, probably not sit in the classroom or if you did you’d keep quiet and be sympathetic.

7) Thus Joe has drawn the following autograph conclusion: “The ultimate tension being individual (trivial) daseins and the great Dasein is the movement between the extremes of Nominalism (nominal--mere naming prattle scale) and the perfect convergence of mind-thought-word-reality in the actions-summa-intentions-of-all-that-is. Because of this universalistic generality, those not party to Philosophy tend to over-estimate its ability to do. Heiddegger, rather, sees genuine philosophy as recessive, moody-broody, in the background, profoundly stirring up the potential of Dasein across the centuries. Scholars beware that their work is less than superficial--it does not even meet the criteria of Nietzche's ‘wisps evaporating into reality’ because scholarship, unfortunately, does not aim at Dasein, of the absolute facticity, of that which imbues our thoughts, but merely catalogues and models dead objects. Philosophy supports the entire movement of Dasein through historicity, through facticity, skimming the appearances of every dimension, and then diving by pure selection to the originary meanings--disappearing below the waves of the day.”

8) More on Heidegger, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and others to come – the group has tested with success, I believe, the weaning from the classic philosophers encountered in the first 40-classes cycle of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

9) A serious thank to Joe for taking us throughout the metaphysics of finance – Joe is talent…

See you next Friday!

Best, Laura
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